


unsung

by fatiguedfern



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatiguedfern/pseuds/fatiguedfern
Summary: At night, Harukawa's plagued by heroes and the monster that had slain them.





	unsung

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to ao3 users dunyazad and corgasbord for betaing!

Moonlight peels through half-lidded slits in a haze of streaked silver. The light stings, gleaming mercury trickling in through the dented blinds and glinting too bright for her blurry eyes to reflect. 

Maki has half a mind to drape their discarded comforter - crumpled in a heap on the carpeted bedroom floor due to the summer heat, yet still somehow partially tangled between her and Saihara’s legs, if the soft rustle of material every time he kicks and shifts is anything to base assumptions off of - over the fist-sized crater that dips at the centre of the strips of finely pressed metal. Half a mind to rip the blindings down all together, Saihara and Yumeno’s semi-shaded sleep be damned, and let the light blind her entirely; to slip out between the two bodies pressed flush against hers and curl into an unlit corner, hidden from searing flashes. 

But the tiny fist bunched loosely in her nightgown offers the slightest of tugs at any movement and could just as well serve as a vice clamping down, keeping her limbs still and palms clammy. And the arm that brushes up against her own in shakey reassurance does well enough in steadying her rasped breath. 

In a way she supposes not objecting to their silent agreement that nights would be spent piled onto the same mattress had both been one of her better and worse decisions since their monitored escape from the game grounds and then the sterile halls thereafter. The rest that’d followed wavers between something akin to peaceful and nights spent rigid and plagued by slackened faces.

Some days it’s names plastered next to her own in storefronts that etch themselves in bold, scratchy symbols into her fluttering eyelids. Other days it’s those that’d been printed finely between lines of falsified instructions on how to erase them. Voices - unknown and familiar alike - call all the same. She wonders more often than she’d like to admit if the whispers are an order to return to her raw state of inexistence. 

There’s no one but herself to blame, she supposes as she undoes Yumeno’s grip finger by finger. If anything, there’s comfort in the heat pooling at her sides, yet it still doesn’t settle the unease clinging to her throat. 

She squirms and twists until she’s successfully snaked her way off the bed without so much as a stir from the others. Foam-wrapped springs creak beneath her as she slips from the curved ridge and pads onto the carpeted floor. 

The dull yellow arc widens as the hinges groan before the hollow wood slab scrapes open. A bulb hangs askew from the stale roof, burning a flickering amber, as per Yumeno's request. Maki finds it almost strange how someone so wishing to be anything but a child still fears the dark. Then again, she isn’t one to judge. Perhaps it’d seem pathetic if it weren’t for the fact that she finds herself basking in the requested light, wishing for a less tainted, gentler mind rather than a rusted iron spine.

Water trickles from the tap’s spout and into her cupped palms. Coloured a powdered, murky white with frothing clouds, the liquid ripples and seeps through the cracks of her fingers before splashing up against her face. For a moment, however brief, stiffly spiked purple flashes within the pool and then scatters as milky drips dribble down her chin and streak into the basin below. 

Maki swipes her hand over her eyes, unable to tell the difference between water droplets and coatings of chilled perspiration. So it’d been familiar faces that’d chosen to haunt her tonight.

The pasty puddle pools at the bottom of the basin, sinking away through the crevice circling around the misfitted plug. And then the face returns in a swirl of crimson. 

The portrait spits blood laced white lies, before it chokes on its heroism once more and slips down the drain. 

She shudders out a sigh, gripping onto chipped porcelain until her fingers whiten. The emptied basin reflects finely spun flaxen and deceptively welcoming eyes. Maki flicks her eyes upwards and the figure’s strung up by their mistrust and deception and dragged from her sight, as before. 

Her gaze settles on the mirrored frame. She counts discoloured patches until her eyes slips and she’s staring into her own reflection. 

Cold lies swim within reflected eyes. A face framed in purple waves before she slams her eyelids shut. And again, they’re pressed into a dripping crimson beneath the weight they’d shouldered.

The door clicks shut behind her as she shuffles out and the illusions of fallen heroes shut along with it. Maki hopes that Yumeno doesn't wake to see the light mostly blocked. But surely she’d understand, and if not Saihara would. 

Light snores rumble from Yumeno’s side of the bed. Saihara’s feather-light breathing quickens enough with her for her to know that she hadn’t trod as lightly as necessary. 

Maki pauses in the doorway, watching as Saihara tenses and then slackens as if his puppeteer had suddenly cut the strings looped around his limbs. The clock above the headboard reads an ungodly hour and she knows it’s time to attempt to squeeze in the last bit of sleep she could find. 

Sparing a glance at what might lurk under the bed in the unlit corners, she slides into the dent she’d shaped. The dip is still warm and Saihara’s thrashing slows. Dreams of worlds free of heroes and monsters alike blanket her mind and lull her to rest.

The next morning sunlight cuts sharply across the slits.

Yumeno had pressed herself snugly into the crook of her arm and Saihara had turned to face her sometime in the night. His arm slings over Yumeno and Maki’s shoulders. 

It isn't the summer heat that suddenly has her writhing in her skin, but despite the itch blooming across her skin, the chafing touch brings her as much comfort as discomfort. 

When - if - they stumbled outside into the world they’d long since cut their ties with, she knows that they’d be greeted by blinding camera flashes and calls for heroes that she can’t remember meeting, let alone being.

But until then she’s content to relish the luke-warm silence and somewhat welcome contact that she finds within their apartment.


End file.
